Visit the Trees and Hills table at Lowbrow Craft Fair on December 12 in Northampton, MA. Colin Tedford will be on hand hawking our comics, cards, and magnets — stock up for stockings or get reading supplies for hiding from the holidays. This is our only holiday show this year, so don’t miss it!

Having trouble finding time to work on your submission for Trick or Treat Comics #4? This is that time! We’ll start off with a brief intro and a brainstorming session for those who don’t have story ideas yet, then settle down to draw.

We will meet Sunday, September 13 from 1:00 to 4:00 PM in the haunted food court* at the Colony Mill (222 West Street, Keene, NH), which is at the opposite end from the Toadstool bookstore and the smokestack.

Get your spooky pen out – Trees & Hills wants you to help us make our fourth set of Trick or Treat Comics! This set of miniature comics will be perfect for giving to trick-or-treaters or Halloween party-goers.

Content: Spookiness, monsters, ghosts, pumpkins, & other Halloween-related stuff (here’s a list of spooky stuff if you need inspiration). Must be suitable for children.

Format: The printed comics will be 2.75″ x 4.25″ (that’s 1/8th-letter size – a sheet of paper folded in half 3 times), 8 pages, portrait orientation, black & white, with 1/4″ margins. Please leave the lower half of the last page blank so we can include information about the collection. First page can be a cover if you like; last page can be a back cover if you like, but in any case you’ll probably want to fit your name & website (or other preferred contact info) there. (PS: If you want to reprint your comic later, this format neatly reconfigures into two 5.5″ x 8.5″ pages. Uncanny!)

How to submit: First, you have to live in Vermont, New Hampshire, or western Massachusetts; give us a mailing address so we can send you a set of comics. Then submit your comic one of the following ways:

Email your comic to organize@treesandhills.org as a set of TIF files, one for each page, with filenames formatted [your last name]-tot4-[page number] (e.g. Tedford-tot4-1.tif, Tedford-tot14-2.tif, etc – the “tot4″ stands for “Trick or Treat #4″). They should be 600 dpi B&W (300dpi greyscale is OK if you’re using ink washes or something).

If you’re unable to produce digital files and don’t have enough time to mail copies, ask nicely and maybe the T&H Mobile Production Unit can scan your comics for you (no guarantees).

End result: The comics will be posted online as freely-downloadable print-ready PDFs; you may print as many copies as you want to give away. We will also be offering printed sets for sale, of which we will send you a copy for free. We may at some point reprint Trick or Treat Comics in a bound and digital anthology; if we do we will send you a minimum of one copy. Do not redistribute PDFs or sell copies of anyone else’s comic without their permission; however, you should feel free to sell your own comic individually and/or offer it for download.

The SPX 2015 Exhibitor Table Lottery is now open. It will be available for the first two weeks of February and only takes a few minutes. There is no benefit to applying early or late. SPX happens September 19-20 in Bethesda, MD.

Some more info: The clock is indeed glued-on cardstock. We chose cardstock for sturdiness, but in retrospect I’d recommend heavy-ish paper instead because I think it’ll flex better against the cardstock cover.

We go for that sort of bold, simple cover design in part so it can work when seen from across the room or as a tiny thumbnail on a screen.

The cover was drawn by Anne Thalheimer based on a design by me (which, as with all our anthology covers now, was based on a prior anthology cover designed by Anne, Dan, Marek Bennett, and me). The table of contents and back cover were designed and created by Matt Young. And keen-eyed viewers will note our eminent reviewer’s name among the contributors ;)